Category Archives: Sighthill

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This August, Sighthill Library has the privilege of hosting the Bedtime Stories Quilt, on loan from the Museum of Childhood.

The quilt was part of a Bedtime Stories exhibition and was created by 60 adults and children from all over the UK. The patchwork features familiar story-time favourites alongside squares inspired by personal memories. More information on the quilt can be found on the Museum’s blog and you can find out more about the Museum of Childhood on their website.

The quilt is on display alongside some of the stories that inspired it, so come along and have a look, before it goes on tour to other libraries in the city including Stockbridge, Fountainbridge, Wester Hailes, Newington and Balgreen.

We ran Dazzle workshops over the Easter holidays in libraries across the city to see what interesting and varied patterns people would come up with for their empty ship outline.

More than 150 people took part over the holidays in events at Central, Moredun, Muirhouse, Oxgangs, Fountainbridge, Wester Hailes, Sighthill, Stockbridge, Granto, Ratho and Sighthill. As you can see from our pictures there were a variety of techniques and approaches used by people of all ages!

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The resource was really intuitive with children of all ages quickly understanding how the resource works with some people returning to libraries to have another go, improving, refining and redrafting their patterns!

Many people liked colouring-in their patterns but there were interesting experiments with collage, fantastic detailed pencil illustration and bright, vibrant painting.

Feedback said the events were “a bit different” “really interesting” “worked great as a joining-in activity” “would like to see more events for families doing a project together” and “Very welcoming staff. I liked the idea of the project. It would be great if the project was promoted in schools.”

Staff at Granton thought that having examples of different techniques was a useful way to inspire people and create varied outcomes and a member of staff at Wester Hailes used his experience as a draughtsman to design a 3D template based on the initial outline.

The events were our first attempt to do some work on Dazzles with a view to doing more work with schools this term, the forthcoming commemoration for the Battle of Jutland and the unveiling of Ciara Phillips’ Dazzle Ship and close partnership with Edinburgh Art Festival supporting exciting creative activities in libraries over the summer holiday.

Huge thanks to Ellis McKenzie for designing the outline and Out of the Blueprint for RISO printing the beautiful templates, and massive thanks to all the staff in libraries who took made it possible for so many people to Dazzle up their Easter break!

If you’re interested in finding out more about Dazzle or using the resource in your school, library or after-school club contact Colm Linnane on colm.linnane@edinburgh.gov.uk or 0131-242 8121.

Using striking patterns and clashing colour schemes, Dazzle camouflage was put on thousands of ships, many of them stationed at Leith. The Dazzle Unit, stationed at the Royal Academy of the Arts, was composed mostly of women who were students at the RA and who produced designs on paper and onto models.

This Easter, Edinburgh Libraries want to see your Dazzle ideas. Why not come along and try out your ideas on one of our specially designed templates!

We will have events in Central Library, Fountainbridge, Balgreen, Muirhouse, Granton, Sighthill, Wester Hailes, Stockbridge, Ratho and South Queensferry.

Keep an eye on local library Facebook pages and our events calendar for details of what’s happening, there’s something for everyone so get involved!

This is the start of an experiment about doing more with art and design in Edinburgh Libraries.

How could we make Dazzle bigger and better? How could we scale up your designs? What would you like to do once you’ve created your pattern, selected your technique, where will your Dazzle lead you?

Dazzle the Forth has been made possible by partnership between Edinburgh Libraries and City of Edinburgh Council Arts and Creative Learning. The partnership aims to sustain work undertaken on the Heritage Lottery funded Project Kitbag which encouraged young people to respond creatively to the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War using objects and documents from the period as a stimulus.

The template has been designed by local designer Ellis McKenzie and printed using the RISO print studio at Out of the Blueprint, sustaining work Edinburgh Libraries have been doing with #artcore.

For more details about Dazzle in Edinburgh Libraries contact Colm Linnane, Service Development Leader, Edinburgh City Libraries. colm.linnane@edinburgh.gov.uk

Edinburgh Libraries’ first ever colouring-in groups for adults will be getting underway soon at Ratho and Sighthill, in response to the craze that’s made its way here from mainland Europe.

In France, sales of colouring in books for adults outstrip those of recipe books. Seen as a way to reduce stress, many adults on this side of the channel have also been joyfully rediscovering their childhood pastime, with discussions about colour combinations and favourite designs receiving hundreds of comments on social media.

Our colouring-in groups will provide tea, pencils and some very intricate designs to get to work on.

The Ratho group starts on Friday 15th May 11am-12.30pm and will meet every fortnight thereafter.

The Sighthill Library group starts on Monday 20th May 6.30pm-7.30pm and will get together weekly.

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Local History Week at Sighthill Library has been a great success with over 150 people turning up to see our display of photographs and memories from Burton’s Biscuits, Golden Wonder Crisps and Milanda Bakers.

We now know that we missed out the Schweppes fizzy drinks factory, and we would be grateful if anyone has any photos or memories from working there that they would like to share with us.

A big favourite of everyone who visited us are the three large paintings that hang in the library. These came to us from Sighthill Community Centre when it closed its doors the same time as the old Sighthill Library in 2010.

What we need help with, is to discover who painted the pictures, so we can send on all the lovely comments.

These were Milanda the bakers, Golden Wonder Crisps and of course Burton’s Biscuits. We have some photographs of each of these businesses, but we are aware that many local people worked there and perhaps there are other photographs yet to be discovered.

Do you have any you would like to share with us?

We are planning a photo display on the week but more importantly we wish to invite you to our reminiscence day on Tuesday the 10th of March. Come along and have a cup of tea or coffee and a munch on some biscuits whilst sharing your tales of the factories.

If you have any memories or photographs of working on the Sighthill Industrial Estate that you would like to share with us, please phone on 0131 529 5566 or email Sighthill.library@edinburgh.gov.uk

Keep an eye on our Facebook page as we will be posting snippets of memories in the run up to the big day.

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If you’re at Edinburgh Zoo on Saturday 24th May between 11am and 3pm come and help us celebrate the launch of Tiger Tales, our new story and craft group for parents with children aged 4 -8, with stories, crafts, activities, face-painting and loads of fun!

For a chance to win a family ticket (2 adults and 2 children or 1 adult and 3 children) to the launch and entry to the zoo for the day, come along to one of the libraries listed below holding Tiger Tales sessions and enter the colour- in prize draw. The prize draw is for Tiger Tales session attendees only. Entries must be completed by 5pm Saturday 17th May and winners will be notified by Monday 19th May.